darling, darling, if only you knew
how your shadow dogs my heels
even as I chase after joy
with a ferocity of a slavering hound
the intensity of the seeking fox
the hunger of the starved wolves in the timber
made monstrous and greedy by imagined need
if only I could shake you off
like an unseen gossamer strand
walked into by sheer accident
caught by the impish wind and taken to elsewheres
wild, free in lusty green springtime
ripe to burst with laughter and love
oh, my darling
even now, my only
my if only
he waves a slender finger
— back and forth, zig and zag, swing and sway —
in front of my face, carefully and perilously guileless
“think of that moment,” he purrs professionally
no parts of me do, not willingly
when the memories come they appear like vomited blood
a blister beneath skin so opaque that no veins show
his swinging finger turns to a fish-hook
and embeds itself into the memories, and I shatter
like a fist-kissed mirror—
like a crack on the river-ice frozen too thin—
someone else smiles, nods, professes relief
someone else walks out of the clinic, head high
but someone else yet runs to the public toilets
locks herself inside a fetid stall
and sobs heedlessly until she throws up.
the incident is not single.
Love your country, fear your government.
Dig your hands into the soil and spit at your television.
Langston, dear heart,
I need you to know:
I would wield that knife
with the precision of a surgeon
the skill of an architect
the grace of a dancer
the love of a new mother.
but no matter how often I excise those worms
from the tender flesh of the world beneath
(waiting, ripe to be cherished
waiting, like us)
they return, and return, and return.
but I will sharpen the knife
and I will not stop.
I will wield it again, and again, and again
with the determination of a poet.
Stay no longer by strands clouded with somnolence,
Turn your eyes and your wild soul where the tide roars,
The waves, calling echoes, will haul our silver galleons,
Gloriously wailing with the gale-might of a stormy sea.
Will you not heed the summons of rising waters?
Will you not seek the white sails of great ships awaiting?
Does your heart not yearn still for the murmuring depths,
For the towering waves where all distance is conquered?
waiting for a word for over an hour
spitting out apologies lost in a mist of misunderstanding
the songs that shaped a tender soul like bruise on repeat
the final love letter written to the blue-eyed boy who vanished like a heartbeat
waiting for the 560 to do something, anything — nothing
waking up with “Snowing in Sapporo” playing in your head
nothing
they always say that someone else says
that nothing lasts forever.
I suppose they're right. even the eternal stars
aren't all that eternal in the face
of the heat death of the universe.
this is my way of cushioning my soul
against the fact that I know
we're over. maybe we were just a star
that burned out.
but the universe still hums around us.
I still inhabit the body
of the girl you called your best friend.
maybe we never had eternity.
maybe we just had now.
maybe now is over.
but if I step outside, I can still see stars.
maybe somewhere in the wreckage of us,
a flame still burns.
but all I am seems to be a wave of seawater.
I crash in, then pull away. I douse the flame
with my very nature.
nothing lasts forever,
except maybes.
maybe, one day,
you'll forgive me.
the memories creep up from where I hid them
sticky vine fingers sliding upwards into consciousness
venomous flowers bursting into bloom
with curious schadenfreude at their own existence
and I breathe their noxious perfume in
then fall.
I will never know if the choice I made
while balancing on the edge of a white powdered razorblade
a pinpoint heel-turn that changed the whole world
that shattered every last idle dream left
and made the stars leave any possible sky
was right.
the memories play back in watercolour.
and I suppose, once, they were beautiful.
the quietness of 'after'
the liquid stillness and maybeness of what's to come next
after the four hundred settles
there will be a headache
a dream-strangled sleep
what else? what other pains?
any joy? any lifting off the plain of existence
fuelled by daily despair?
they'd ask me why. I couldn't blame them
but they'd not like the answers
because heading downwards, cocooned in an air chrysalis
waiting for a sunset
or a sunrise, you don't get that picky, really—
is better than standing naked in their icestorm reality
pretending, pretending, failing to pretend
that you are a superheroine who swallows lightning
who wears springtime's vernal defiance in her eyes
who stares knowingly and loving into a future unseen.
the silence of 'after':
the silence of “oh, she did it again”.
I hope this silence will envelope those
who create it, and buffer them
from the Finality, creeping over a bleeding horizon
crawling on skinned knees, pulling itself up
with mangled fingers, caught in the machinery of life.
when you step into the 'after', whether alive or dead
you know of its savagery, first hand
you would not wish it on the worst of humanity.
stormrosedream, I watch your petals twist through gales
more severe and beautiful than even your eyes
everything about you is a tragedy and a triumph
that fills my heart and seeps through its cracks
trickles downwards to my fingertip
and through your malice, your beauty, your wonder
I breathe you in — inspiration, oh cynosure dearest
with you, with you
I could even fall in love.